Philanthropy Action

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Archive

Jul 28, 2008

Pricing a Drop to Drink

Whether the motives are commercial or environmental, almost everyone seems to agree that the time to put a price on water has come.

Jul 24, 2008

Fertilizer No Substitute for Good Management

Providing fertilizers in parts of the world with poor soil quality will not only do little to improve agricultural productivity, and may do harm. A strategy more likely to be successful is to lay the groundwork for farmers to gain secure land rights.

Jul 21, 2008

The Thorny Problem of Donor Intent

It may seem that honoring donor intent in all cases is the right and obvious thing to do. But the recent revelation that before her death Leona Helmsley charged her multi-billion dollar charitable trust to attend to “the care and welfare of dogs” starkly illustrates that donor intent is a thornier question than it seems.

Jul 16, 2008

An Emerging Markets Cellular Behemoth Means Opportunity

A company the size of a merged MTN and Reliance Communications would have the potential to make capital investments in infrastructure that could drive faster subscriber growth in emerging geographies. A larger and more exciting possibility is the possibility of using cellphones to dramatically lower the cost of small transactions.

Jul 11, 2008

The Role of Genetically Modified Crops in World Food Security

Most discussions of the role of GM crops in the current food crisis fail to address whether non-technical solutions such as land stewardship and efficient water use have been fully explored.

Jul 07, 2008

Bush Proposes Tracking Mechanism for Aid Pledges

A mechanism for tracking whether members of the G8 are keeping up with their pledged contributions toward development in impoverished countries would be a step in the right direction for injecting more accountability into foreign aid.

Jul 03, 2008

More Young People Looking for Post-College Stints in the Volunteer Corps

More recent college graduates are applying to join volunteer organizations such as Teach for America or the Peace Corps. Yet in the last few months two relevant stories have come out about the Peace Corps specifically, both of which suggest that its historical reliance on young volunteers has played a role in the organizations’ reputation as a particularly ineffective conduit for humanitarian relief.